Chapter 12: The Chains of the Past
1452 Words
The sun filtered through the dense canopy, painting scattered light over Aelira’s face as she walked through the forest. Her limbs were heavy, not from exhaustion, but from the weight of everything she had just learned. The carvings, the prophecy, the man cloaked in shadows who vanished into smoke, they left a hundred thoughts racing through her mind.
Thalia trailed a step behind, unusually quiet, her bow slung across her back. Ever since they left the stone circle, there had been a silence between them. Not awkward, just thick with unspoken fears.
“He knew me,” Aelira said, finally breaking the silence.
Thalia glanced at her. “He knew your power.”
“But I don’t understand it,” Aelira murmured, touching the mark on her wrist. It still pulsed, warm against her skin, like a heartbeat that wasn’t hers. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to be.”
They reached the edge of the stream that split the forest, its waters clear and cold. Aelira crouched beside it and splashed water onto her face, hoping it would clear the fog in her thoughts.
Thalia sat on a rock nearby. “You don’t have to know everything yet,” she said softly. “But I think you’re starting to remember.”
Aelira nodded, eyes focused on the water. “I dreamed about my mother again last night. She was crying, holding a bundle of cloth soaked in blood.” Her voice cracked. “I think it was me.”
Thalia’s expression darkened. “Maybe your rejection started long before Kaelen.”
Aelira turned to her. “Do you think I was hidden? That someone tried to erase me?”
Thalia didn’t answer, but her silence said enough.
---
Kaelen stood at the window of his study, the scroll still unrolled on the table behind him. His reflection stared back at him, tired eyes, furrowed brow, jaw clenched.
He hadn’t slept since they returned.
The words haunted him:
“The Blessed Luna shall rise only when the Alpha accepts his failure, not his pride.”
Malric stepped into the room, holding a folder. “We found something.”
Kaelen turned sharply. “What is it?”
Malric placed the folder on the table. Inside were weathered documents, old birth records, partially burned. Names were crossed out. Others were scribbled in the margins, false identities.
“I think someone tried to erase her past,” Malric said.
Kaelen’s blood ran cold. “Who?”
Malric shook his head. “But it started years before you rejected her. There’s evidence she was moved from pack to pack, kept under watch. All under orders from someone in the High Council.”
Kaelen stared at the papers. Aelira’s childhood had been a blur of shadows and false names, no wonder she had always seemed like she was running.
“Why would the Council target her?” Kaelen asked aloud.
Malric hesitated. “Because she’s not just any Luna. She’s…” he trailed off.
Kaelen looked up. “She’s the heir to something. Isn’t she?”
---
Aelira and Thalia reached the small wooden cabin where they’d left their supplies. The moment Aelira stepped inside, she felt it, a chill that didn't come from the wind. Her breath caught.
Something had been here.
The window was slightly ajar. A trail of muddy footprints led to the back room. Aelira motioned to Thalia, who readied her weapon.
They moved silently, slowly.
But the intruder was gone.
Instead, what they found chilled them more than any shadowy figure.
On the table lay a torn piece of parchment. Aelira picked it up with trembling fingers.
It was a letter. Addressed to her.
“Little Moon,
They are watching. Always watching.
The truth is not just hidden, it was buried.
Find the redwood. The tree with the scar.
There lies the next key.
- A friend.”
Aelira read the note twice, heart pounding.
“Who would call me that?” she asked aloud. “Little Moon…”
Thalia’s eyes widened. “Your mother used to call you that, didn’t she? You told me, once.”
Aelira nodded slowly. “I did.”
She tucked the note away and turned toward the door. “We’re going to find that tree.”
They trekked north, into the part of the forest most pack members avoided. Stories spoke of shadows here, of strange howls that came with no moon. But Aelira wasn’t afraid. Not anymore.
She felt something awakening inside her, not power, not magic. Something deeper.
Truth.
The forest grew darker as the sun dipped low. Then they saw it, a towering redwood with bark darker than the others, and a jagged scar that split its trunk like a lightning bolt.
“This is it,” Aelira said, stepping forward.
There was a stone at its base, overgrown with ivy. She knelt, brushing it aside.
Another crest, the same moon and crown symbol from the stone altar.
She pressed her palm against it.
Nothing happened.
Then. . . a click.
The earth shifted beneath her, and the stone swung open like a door, revealing a narrow staircase that led into the ground.
Aelira looked at Thalia.
“We go together,” Thalia said.
And they descended.
The tunnel was narrow, lined with roots and damp stone. It smelled of old magic and forgotten things. They walked for what felt like forever before it opened into a chamber.
It took their breath away.
The walls were lined with murals, scenes of battles, of Lunas leading wolves, of Alphas kneeling before them. And in the center stood a pedestal, glowing faintly.
On it was a book.
Aelira approached slowly.
The title was written in gold.
“Chronicles of the Lunar Line.”
She opened it.
And there, on the first page was a sketch of a woman.
Her eyes. Her hair. Her mark.
It was Aelira.
But the name written below wasn’t hers.
Lunara of the Moonborne Line.
Her hands trembled.
“This… this is me,” she whispered. “Or who I used to be.”
Thalia stared at her. “You’ve been reborn.”
Aelira closed the book, her heart racing. “They changed my name. My past. But they couldn’t kill my blood.”
Behind them, the tunnel shuddered.
A voice echoed from the darkness. “You were never meant to find this.”
They turned, and standing at the entrance was a woman with silver hair and eyes like smoke.
“Who are you?” Aelira demanded.
“I am the Warden of Secrets,” the woman replied. “And you are a threat to the order we built.”
Thalia stepped forward, but the woman raised a hand. Shadows danced at her fingertips.
“You’ve seen too much, little Luna. Your return was never part of the plan.”
“But it was part of the prophecy,” Aelira said, voice steady. “Wasn’t it?”
The woman’s eyes narrowed.
“You don’t even know the whole truth,” she hissed. “You’re only reading the first chapter.”
Then, with a flick of her hand, the chamber exploded in blinding light.
---.
Kaelen stood in the great hall, staring at the symbol carved into the stone wall. For years he thought it was just decoration, but now he knew.
It was the Moonborne Crest.
“She’s the last of them,” he whispered.
Behind him, his mother stepped forward. “Not the last,” she said quietly. “But the strongest.”
Kaelen turned, stunned. “You knew?”
“I always knew who she was,” his mother admitted. “But I thought hiding her would protect her.”
“You let me reject her,” he said, bitterness in his voice.
“I had to,” she replied. “Because the moment you accepted her, the war would begin again.”
Kaelen stared at the crest. “Then maybe it’s time.”
---
Aelira awoke to find the chamber cracked open, half of it collapsed. Thalia groaned beside her, bruised but alive.
The book was gone.
So was the Warden.
Aelira pulled herself up. “She didn’t kill us. She just… warned us.”
“She wanted us to stop,” Thalia said. “But we won’t, will we?”
“No,” Aelira said, her voice steel. “We go deeper. We find the rest.”
She turned to the shattered pedestal and saw a fragment of a page left behind.
It read:
“When the crown is broken, and the Alpha fails,
She who bears the moon shall tip the scales.”
Aelira folded it carefully.
It wasn’t over.
It had barely begun.
- Writer
